


Lippy Kids

by kleinergruenerkaktus



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, Minor Violence, and kind of a dick, because Parse is a dumb teenager, hyperbolic mention of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 18:58:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8812321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kleinergruenerkaktus/pseuds/kleinergruenerkaktus
Summary: “Parse.” Audibly clenched teeth.“What?”“Don’t fucking do it.”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SummerFrost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SummerFrost/gifts).



> Hi! So, uh, your prompt was Kent/Jack with D/s if possible, and so obviously you get angry teenagers tussling in a locker room. That's what you meant by that, right?
> 
> I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about the relationship between Kent and Jack in the Q, and this scene sort of sets the tone for that, I think. I was also inspired by Crosby's recent admission on an NHLPA questionnaire that his pet peeve is 'tape on the dressing room floor' (I lol'd), plus his documented habit of tossing tape balls at a trash can across the room until it goes in, for as long as it takes. Never change, Sid.
> 
> Anyway, merry Christmas, I hope you like it!

“Don’t do that,” says Zimms, looking immediately like he would seize back and swallow the words if he could, but also like he’ll stand by them come hell or high water, now that he’s let them out. It only took three weeks. Kent looks up at him, sitting across him in a dressing room so narrow they’re practically knocking knees, and widens his eyes in what he knows is a completely insincere and irritating show of innocence.

“Don’t do what?”

“That,” Zimms grits out, pointing at the tape ball that Kent just dropped on the floor. Or, well, not dropped, exactly. Made a show of balling up and tossing through the air, not even trying to hit a trashcan.

“Why not?” he asks, drawing out the question, sing-songing almost. It only took three weeks of The Chosen One tiptoeing around them all, clenched up so tight with needing to prove that he was One Of The Boys, Entitled To Nothing, Just Here To Help The Team Win that it’s nearly giving _Kent_ a stress headache. When it’s so hilariously obvious that he’s a total fucking spaz about, like, everything. 

Like - rituals and superstitions, Kent can get with. Guys with lucky underwear have no business throwing stones on that front. But it’s the little shit: his equipment just so, always the same place on the bus, the fucking PB&Js, no one can touch his fucking water bottles, etcetera etcetera. And tape on the floor in the dressing room, apparently. It took Kent a while to notice, between training camp and new teammates and all that crazy, but once he’d seen Zimms glare daggers at first the tape ball, then the back of the guy that dropped it, Kent could not unsee.

“It’s rude,” Zimms tells him, with the mulish jaw of a man bracing for ridicule. “Someone have to pick that up, later. Yves is our equipment manager, not - _comment dis-tu_ -“

“Housekeeper?” suggests Kent, biting back a _you’d know more about that than me._ Zimms is the only frenchie on the team that always speaks English with him. His English is pretty great, too, save the occasional fudged consonant and weird, whispery ‘h’. Which is dumb, not charming.

Sébas clomps past them, inexplicably both bare chested and still wearing his goalie pads; he shouts something fast and angry-sounding at Zimms, but also ruffles his hair in clear approval, so who even knows. Zimms bats him away and responds with something Kent’s definitely learnt to recognise, switching on a grin like a neon sign in a grimy storefront. It flickers out as soon as Seb moves on.

They lost in the shootout. In spite of, not because of Zimms - who, as advertised, is a goddamn prodigy - but still. It was only a preseason game, but still. 

Is this how it’s gonna be? Because Kent hates losing as much as the next guy (probably more, honestly) but if he has to be around this shit for the next two years he’s gonna kill himself.

He tears the tape off his other leg, balling it up between his palms. He knows Zimms is watching, for all that he’s got his head down. He extends his arm like a ref before puck drop.

“Parse.” Audibly clenched teeth.

“What?”

“Don’t fucking do it.”

“Why not?” God, imagine being like this, knowing damn well you’re being fucked with and still not being able to let it go. Kent almost feels too sorry for him to keep going. Almost.

He drops the tape ball, then deftly snatches it out of mid-air. And again: drop, snatch. Zimms watches him through narrowed eyes. He looks like a pissed-off cat, it’s great. Drop, snatch. He waits a split second longer each time, each catch more daring than the last. Kent’s being an idiot, he is well aware. He was always the clown on his minor teams, the prankster - bit harder to do that when you don’t speak the language. This tape ball chicken is dumb and he needs to stop, he needs to finish changing and get on the bike, but - two problems. One, Kent was born without brakes (his mother always says), and two, something about having Zimms’ attention and getting under his skin is scratching some kind of itch.

 _Fuckin’ watch me, Wonder Boy._ First-overall-in-the-draft legacy from Hockey Heartland, versus undrafted net-crasher from Bumfuck, New York. _Watch me._

“Arrête, là!” 

“Fuckin’ make me,” Kent bites back, feeding off Zimms’ rage like some fucked up vampire, bad vibes instead of blood. He barely gets the words out before Zimms takes him up on it and tackles him to the - ew - locker room carpet.

Kent’s head bounces off an abandoned skate; there’s shouting in the background, excitement mingled with alarm. Fuck, Zimms is strong, and easily outclasses him in height and weight, not fair. 

“Ouch,” he complains, wheezing, “my fucking head, you could’ve sliced my head open, I could be bleeding to death right now if you-“

“J’men câlice,” Zimms informs him, then shifts to pin Kent to the floor with one knee on his chest and a hand on his shoulder; with his other hand he reaches over to where Kent dropped his tape ball and pitches it at a trash can standing at least five feet away. Kent tilts his head back to see it fly. It goes in.

“Maybe if you’d scored like that in the shootout, we coulda won the game,” Kent says without thinking.

He has front-row seats for the emotions racing across Zimms’ face: satisfaction wiped out by shock, then hurt, before being swiftly papered over with what Kent calls his robot face. He shifts again, this time leaning all his weight into his knee, and suddenly Kent can’t breathe.

“Ow, ow, fuck,” he mouths, “stop,” because it fucking _hurts_. Zimms doesn’t move.

“Maybe if you throw the fucking tape in the fucking trash,” he says evenly, not quite looking at Kent, holding down his arms with a bruising grip, “you can learn to aim little better, and maybe some day _you_ can score in the shootout and win us the game.”

He gets off Kent, gets up, and walks away, presumably towards the gym. A hand moves into Kent’s field of vision, outstretched: Kent clasps it, and lets himself be hauled to his feet.

“Ben, y’est en mosus, là,” says Michel, whose hand it was, shaking his head in a mix of admiration and concern. “No piss off Zimo after loss, _hein?_?” 

“For sure,” Kent tells him distractedly, rubbing at his upper arms: he won’t be surprised to see bruises there, tomorrow. In fact, he’s not sure at all. It might be worth the pain if pissing off Jack Zimmermann means breaking through that infuriating Golden Boy persona. Who does he think he is, fucking Sidney Crosby?

Fuck that. Kent hasn’t yet met anyone that he can’t piss off into making a mistake, doesn’t matter how good they are. _Two years, Zimms_ , he thinks as he strips out of his underarmour. _We’ll see who wins in the end._


End file.
